This video illustrates the point made by the excerpt that follows:
The following is an excerpt from an essay by Will Herberg entitled “What Keeps Modern Man from Religion?” that is included in Arguing Conservatism: Four Decades of Intercollegiate Review
With the deep and thoroughgoing secularization of Western society, the hopes and expectations of the masses of people have steadily been turning from church to state, from religion to politics. This is a fact that no one, whatever his opinion or ideology, can deny, or has, in fact, denied. Consider how far this has gone in our own mass society, and our American society is only beginning to take its first steps in the direction of the Welfare State; if you want to see a Welfare State in its full development, look at Sweden. But already in our own society, people have been so stripped of their human bonds in church and community that they are driven to look to the state for the most ordinary human associations and services. The state has not only become Big Father and Big Brother. It is actually brought to the point of having to supply to the forlorn members of the “lonely crowd” a state-appointed Good Friend. For, what is the modern social worker but a state-appointed Good Friend to the friendless denizens of mass society?
(Emphasis added.)
Right next door to Sweden, both physically and in the Welfare State-of-mind, Holland has seen problems crop up in its tolerant utopia:
There is a lot of literature, written by people overseas, about the demographic shift taking place in Europe. Naturally, I have wondered if these accounts were exaggerated, for publication. But a few months ago, a gay friend came to dinner at our house. I had forgotten that he was Dutch – and he told us how his brother, who is also gay and still in The Netherlands, is trying desperately to get out and join him here in the US. Our friend stated emphatically that both he and his brother no longer feel safe in that once safe haven. Doesn’t this go against everything the gay rights movement has fought for the past three decades?
Tolerance only works if everybody relaxes into the warm bath of okayness. The moment that someone refuses the plunge, refuses to sign up with the mass society, the plug is pulled. All the warm water drains out.
Something beyond limp okayness is needed to hold a society together, both from within and in resisting outside threats.
Backbone. Integrity. Standards.
Stand by your standards, and somebody will get mad.
Somebody will call you intolerant. Racist. Bigoted. Maybe even un-American.
Thank you. Just doing my small bit to protect fools.
See also Andrew Breitbart’s tart commentary on this video. An excerpt:
Missing are pledges not to kiss the ring of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other pledged enemies of America. Nor are there pledges not to make movies that glorify these tyrants. Nor are there pledges to take seriously that we are at war, will continue to be at war under President Obama and that our precious and under-appreciated military is fighting an avowed and evil enemy — so that, among other things, Hollywood can continue to make decadent crap that actually motivates our enemy to fight us harder!
As for me and my household, we will not be serving Obama. We will be serving the Lord. (Joshua 24:15)
(Hat tip: Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldber in NRO’s The Corner.)
Tags: barack obama, Books, conservatism, conservative politics, intercollegiate review, intercollegiate studies institute, obamamania, Politics, religion in the public square
